Here is a long time bargain favourite, Pilastri’s Rosso Piceno, in other words a red wine from the Marche region near the Adriatic coast of Italy. It’s made from 70% sangiovese and 30% montepulciano, organically farmed and aged in steel.
Rosso Piceno 2014 (Saladini Pilastri)
Quite dark, purple tones. Aroma of cherries, herbs and a little spiciness. Fresh and fruity all the way, with a dry mouthfeel and a youthful acidity.
Price: Low
Food: Pasta, chicken, salads
Leave a CommentMuscadet by the Loire is maybe underestimated. At least it’s undoubtedly good value. Even this wine, handmade, low-sulphur, natural and with loads of character, is very good value. It’s a wine that evokes memories of summer, flowers and sunshine.
This one is made by Jo Landron, that started to make wines with his father back in 1979 and has since walked the steps via “normal” organic to biodynamic farming.
This wine is from 40 years old melon de bourgogne vines, fermentation in cement with indigenous yeasts, the malolactic was blocked to retain the freshness, and the wine was bottled unfiltered.
La Fief du Breil 2013 (Jo Landron)
Straw-coloured. Bread and yeast aromas from ageing on lees, wet stone. Full, round on the palate, chalky minerality and just enough acidity to match.
Price: Medium
Food: Tasty fish, salads, creamy cheeses
Leave a CommentAnd the first 100% organic village for agriculture is Correns, in the inland from the Azur coast between Nice and Marseille.
Much has been said about this property and its affinity to artists throughout the years. Briefly: In 1970 jazz pianist Jacques Loussier used it as a recording studio. (Parts of Pink Floyd’s The Wall are recorded here.) Today it’s owned by actors Jolie & Pitt, and the wine is made by Perrin, the family behind many outstanding wines like Beaucastel.
Covering 500 hectares of land in the Côte de Provence, the wine château is only a small part of this, together with olive groves, woods and wildlife. The vineyards are located around 350 meters above sea level, partly terraced, on clay and limestone soils. The temperature varies a great deal between day and night, given a nice freshness to most of the wines.
This rosé is made mainly from the cinsault grape, with some grenache, syrah and rolle. Rolle? Well, this is quite complicated: Rolle is a synonym for a local grape named rollo. It’s also a synonym for the better known Italian vermentino. It can even be that the two are related…
Most of the grapes are lightly pressed directly. But some of the syrah are made according to the “saignée” method, which means that part of the juice is removed from the must to concentrate phenolics and other components. (Needless to say, it’s not an ideal practice with “naturalists”.) The fermentation was mostly in stainless steel, with a small part (around 5%) in oak, with some batonnage.
Miraval Rosé 2015 (Ch. Miraval)
Pale pink. Delicate aromas of citrus, raspberries and white flowers, and a touch of pepper. Quite fresh on the palate, some volume too and a nice concentration that makes it persistent, with a dryness and a touch of a salty minerality in the finish. I find that many of the rosés in the area have too much alcohol for the body and concentration. This one not.
Price: Low
Food: Salads, fowl, fish and seafood
I tasted this at the Territoriet (The Territory) wine bar in Oslo a few weeks ago. It was a perfect red wine for a warm, humid, but not sunny day in Oslo.
Heinrich grows the grapes after biodynamic principles, though the wine has no certification. It is a 100% zweigelt, underwent a spontaneous fermentation in steel and big oak vats, and had two weeks maceration.
2014 is also in the market, and both are good.
Zweigelt 2013 (Heinrich)
Cherry red. Aromatic, with mature red berries, some green pepper. Quite warm and round in the mouth, but also with light and elegant tannins and a crisp, refreshing acidity.
Price: Low
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There are some posts from Southern Spain these days, and the bulk is yet to come. So a French wine is this week’s pick.
Tom Lubbe, originally from New Zealand, makes wine in the French part of Catalonia, in the hills of the Coteaux du Fenouillèdes, to be precise. The altitude is 450 meters, quite high for this region, and the soils are granitic. Biodynamics are practised, and the winemaking is as natural as possible.
Nowadays his grapes are picked early, and musts from aromatic grapes like muscat are often given a long contact with skins and stems – here 30 days.
Matassa Cuvée Alexandria 2015 (Dom. Matassa)
Orange-brown, slightly cloudy. Smells of orange peel, apricot and aromatic white flowers. Medium full and concentrated, yet light (in the meaning uplifting), light tannins, quite refreshing, and with a salty, mineral aftertaste. Delicious.
Price: medium
Leave a CommentI tasted this at the Territoriet (The Territory) wine bar in Oslo’s nowadays quite fashionable Grünerløkka district. The wine bar is an independent no-chain place that boasts 400 wines by the glass, a great many of them organic.
Wine and music: I can “tolerate” this!
The producers both live and work at their Can Comas estate in Catalan Penedès where they feel an obligation to treat both the vineyards and the surrounding forests as eco-friendly as possible.
The vineyards are not irrigated, nor ploughed (in order to avoid erosion and encourage natural growth), and neither do they use fertilisers.
This rosé made from the rare sumoll variety, that was about to disappear but saved by a group of local vintners, among them Celler Pardas themselves. This vineyard is south-east facing at 400 meters and was planted 40 years ago.
A perfect choice in that hot Oslo evening.
Pardas Sumoll Rosé 2014 (Celler Pardas)
Pink, salmon colour, onion-like rim. Fruity, hoot of red apple, flowers. Round on the palate, and just enough acidity to keep the freshness.
Price: Low
Food: Summer salads and other light dishes
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On holiday on the coast of Granada, here is a local wine. It’s a sustainably made wine from Jete, in the heights above seaside town Almuñécar, where I am now, and it was bought in the specialist wine store on the corner off the main square.
It’s mainly from petit verdot, which means that one should expect some power and roundness, not elegance. Still it has a bit of that too, probably from the small amount of tempranillo.
The climate is somewhere between mountaneous-mediterranean, but borders to the continental. After destemming the grapes the juice underwent a pre-fermentation at 10-12°C before the actual alcoholic fermentation. The colour is mostly from lágrimas (run-off juice), then lightly pressed grapes and with a short skin contact.
Rosa-O 2014 (Calvente)
Brilliant red on the darker side, towards a red wine in appearance. Rich fruitiness, with red berries (strawberry, cherries) and just a hint of caramel. Full on the palate, medium-low in acidity; easy to drink, in the best sense of the word.
Price: Low
Food: White fish, dried cod, light meat
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I have followed this wine for some time. In a market that overflows with uninspiring proseccos, this one has personality and a statement. This is a prosecco made today by Maurizio Donadi at Casa Belfi, just like they did all over the Valdobbiadene-Conegliano in the old days – in sharp contrast to today’s mainly industrial products.
Unfiltered, unfined, unsulphured, un-whatever… The usual glera grape variety is used 100%, biodynamically grown.
Colfondo means that it comes with the residuals. Don’t throw it away, just turn the bottle upside down and you get all the delicious taste from it.
Colfondo Prosecco 2014 (Casa Belfi)
Light yellow colour with some sediments. Pure and delicate aroma with yellow apples, freshly baked bread and scented flowers. Creamy and full in the mouth, with a taste of apples, with a long persistence and some bitterness in the back.
Price: Low
Food: Aperitif, antipasti, red fish, light meat
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I intended to feature another wine this week, a really serious one from an important place. But the sun is shining, and life is laughing, and…. The whole world smiles with you (goes the song). So heaven can wait (goes another song)!
Here is a simple, straight-forward and delicious summer white from New Zealand, where sauvignon blanc has made itself a paradise during the last 50 years or so. The Matua company sources their grapes from Hawkes’ Bay on the North Island, and Marlborough and Central Otago on the South Island, the latter a pretty chilly place that can give a really refreshing acidity to the wines. Some are blends, some are regional wines by grape, and Matua go all the way to single vineyard varietal wines.
This one comes from their so-called regional range, and the region in question being Marlborough on the northern tip of the South Island. Not so chilly as Central Otago, but with enough variation to give enough oenological possibilities. The Spence brothers claim to have produced the first Kiwi sauvignon blanc in 1974. Since 2008 Nikolai St. George has been chief winemaker, and Bob Spence still popping into the winery once in a while to make sure that ‘the eternal summer shall not fade’… (Shakespeare)
Nik St. George
Back label
Matua Organic Sauvignon Balanc 2015 (Matua)
Light yellow with greenish tones. Lovely scent of sauvignon gooseberry, passion fruit, kiwi and lime. A body that’s more towards slender than fat, and just the right acidity to keep it together. It’s a wine that breathes, full of life. Yes, it’s a modern inox-made wine, but somehow they have managed to avoid those ‘closed’ canned-pear aromas that often follow with that technique. Pure fun!
Price: Low
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This is an all time favourite, a nice ‘n easy summer drink. I admit I don’t fully understand the name, but still I feel that it says it all – an invitation to drink, to sing and whistle.
François and Pascaline Plouzeau run their Domaine de la Garrelière, near the Richelieu village just outside Tours in the Loire valley. Here they follow strict biodynamic principles. The wines carry labels made by local artists that reflect the wines’ names.
The Gamay Sans Tralala is made from 100 gamay, and is fermented naturally. It’s just lovely, joyous, gluggable… Need I say more?
Gamay Sans Tralala 2015 (Domaine de la Garrelière)
Delicious, light wine with aroma of berries and flowers, and a slight touch of spices. Luscious and fruity in the mouth, low in tannin, and with just enough acidity.
Price: Low
Food: Salads, light meat and some fish dishes too, but this joyous song doesn’t really need any accompaniment
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